SHE’S NO DUMMY: Designer Chabella Gomez works hard to make a go of her business, which can be tough in New York.J.C. Rice

“If you can make it here . . .”

That’s the refrain of small businesses trying to make a go of it in the Big Apple.

But according to recent polls looking at entrepreneurship, there are many huge hurdles facing small startups, starting with a state and local tax rate of almost 16 percent, compared with the US average of 6.8 percent.

“While sales in New York are higher than in other places, the operating costs are also higher. Thus, revenues are up, but profits are down,” according to a report from Biz2Credit, an online firm that helps startups find capital. “These realities do not bode well for small-business growth.”

That’s what Chabella Gomez, a dress and blouse designer, found out for herself when she started her self-financed dress-design business from her apartment about two years ago. She records most of her sales online at chabellanyc.com.

“I was always interested in art and design,” Gomez explains. “Now I want to design clothes for women who need something for work and then often go on to a social event the same day.”

But she has found that costs and taxes make running a small business in the city difficult.

“It is a great place, but everything is incredibly expensive,” Gomez says.

She works with about 10 freelancers in outsourcing some of the functions of her business, but she is the company’s only employee. She sometimes doesn’t pay herself — or effectively pays herself less than the minimum wage.

If taxes and other costs could be lowered for a just-starting business to give it a better chance to survive, “that would be fantastic,” Gomez says.

According to the Biz2Credit report, New York was among the 25 fastest-growing cities in small-business creation, just behind San Francisco and just ahead of Boston and Los Angeles. But Big Apple policies like the new minimum-wage and sick-leave regs could choke many startups.

“New York’s state and local tax burden, government fees, cost of living, the prevalence of unions and high insurance costs make it unattractive for knowledge-based businesses,” said Rohit Arora, Biz2Credit CEO and the author of the report.